Salacia

The female divinity of the sea among the Romans, and the wife of Neptune.1 The name is evidently connected with sal (hals), and accordingly denotes the wide, open sea. Servius2 declares the name Salacia to be only a surname of Venus, while in another passage3 he observes, that Cicero, in his Timaeus, applied the name to the Greek Tethys, which we cannot wonder at, since the natural tendency was to identify Salacia with some Greek marine divinity. 4

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References

Notes

  1. Varro. On the Latin Language v, 72; ap. Augustine. City of God vii, 22; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid i, 144; x, 76.
  2. on Aeneid i, 720.
  3. on Georgics i, 31.
  4. Comp. Cicero. de Univers., 11; Gellius, xiii, 22; Augustine, l.c. iv, 10.

Sources

  • Aken, Dr. A.R.A. van. (1961). Elseviers Mythologische Encyclopedie. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.